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Regardless of what you think about Trump, he distinguished himself enough from the rest of the field that he became the only viable choice for enough people at

Regardless of what you think about Trump, he distinguished himself enough from the rest of the field that he became the only viable choice for enough people at the right stages to push him through. Apparently your lofty rationality isn't developed enough to see that. What does rationality even mean in this context? I'd love to know where you draw the line between a rational choice and an irrational one when it comes to voting.

yongjik 9y ago
> ... he distinguished himself enough from the rest of the field ... ...by not being a plumber?
- imminentviolet 9y ago
  The idea that only professional politicians should be admitted to office would've incensed the left 10 years ago. These days, because Trump made it in instead of say, Jon Stewart, the left is suddenly very pious about political office.
  - yongjik 9y ago
    Of course people without professional political career can be presidents, even great presidents sometimes. However, if the main differentiating factor of your favorite candidate is that he had zero experience in politics, it's hard to take that argument seriously. People considered Bernie Sanders an outsider, and he's been a senator since 2007. Trump isn't an "outsider": he's simply unqualified.
    - imminentviolet 9y ago
      It depends. If you consider political experience (especially extensive political experience) to be a marker of corruption and ingrained hypocrisy, political inexperience can look good by comparison. There seem to be enough people sufficiently cynical these days to see it that way.
cmurf 9y ago
Birtherism. That is the sole datapoint a thinking, rational, ethical person needed to know to properly character assess Trump. If you still voted for him, you either liked that sort of blatant Nixon southern strategy 2.0 type of bigotry; or you're dismissive of it as a problematic attribute in a leader for this country. And sure, Clinton necessarily must have been a fundamentally flawed candidate, hindsight being 20/20, to lose to that. But I put more blame on Democratic and Republican parties for sabotaging the Electoral College with party loyalists. Dead people would have done a better job, randomly selected people likely would have too, and contemplative people even more reliable. The two parties get way more blame from me for this setup to failure, than the people I think are deeply ignorant people in some form of denial for having voted for the Celebrity Chaos Clown.
- imminentviolet 9y ago
  >If you still voted for him, you either liked that sort of blatant Nixon southern strategy 2.0 type of bigotry; or you're dismissive of it as a problematic attribute in a leader for this country. Ok, but neither of those are irrational, they are judgements based around premises that are different than yours. You can argue whether those premises are rational, or ill informed or whatever, but then you're basically just wading into the usual swamp of political discourse - these issues haven't been definitively resolved and just dismissing the whole stance out of hand by calling it irrational doesn't get you anywhere. You're effectively just venting.

yongjik 9y ago

> ... he distinguished himself enough from the rest of the field ... ...by not being a plumber?

imminentviolet 9y ago
The idea that only professional politicians should be admitted to office would've incensed the left 10 years ago. These days, because Trump made it in instead of say, Jon Stewart, the left is suddenly very pious about political office.
- yongjik 9y ago
  Of course people without professional political career can be presidents, even great presidents sometimes. However, if the main differentiating factor of your favorite candidate is that he had zero experience in politics, it's hard to take that argument seriously. People considered Bernie Sanders an outsider, and he's been a senator since 2007. Trump isn't an "outsider": he's simply unqualified.
  - imminentviolet 9y ago
    It depends. If you consider political experience (especially extensive political experience) to be a marker of corruption and ingrained hypocrisy, political inexperience can look good by comparison. There seem to be enough people sufficiently cynical these days to see it that way.

cmurf 9y ago

Birtherism. That is the sole datapoint a thinking, rational, ethical person needed to know to properly character assess Trump. If you still voted for him, you either liked that sort of blatant Nixon southern strategy 2.0 type of bigotry; or you're dismissive of it as a problematic attribute in a leader for this country. And sure, Clinton necessarily must have been a fundamentally flawed candidate, hindsight being 20/20, to lose to that. But I put more blame on Democratic and Republican parties for sabotaging the Electoral College with party loyalists. Dead people would have done a better job, randomly selected people likely would have too, and contemplative people even more reliable. The two parties get way more blame from me for this setup to failure, than the people I think are deeply ignorant people in some form of denial for having voted for the Celebrity Chaos Clown.

imminentviolet 9y ago
>If you still voted for him, you either liked that sort of blatant Nixon southern strategy 2.0 type of bigotry; or you're dismissive of it as a problematic attribute in a leader for this country. Ok, but neither of those are irrational, they are judgements based around premises that are different than yours. You can argue whether those premises are rational, or ill informed or whatever, but then you're basically just wading into the usual swamp of political discourse - these issues haven't been definitively resolved and just dismissing the whole stance out of hand by calling it irrational doesn't get you anywhere. You're effectively just venting.